


Helter-Skelter

by Lark (azryn)



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Identities, Bonding, Crime Fighting, F/F, Pining, Vigilantism, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23107633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azryn/pseuds/Lark
Summary: Skitter and Shadow Stalker find common ground on a mutual fondness for brutality.
Relationships: Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver & Sophia Hess | Shadow Stalker, Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver/Sophia Hess | Shadow Stalker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 60





	Helter-Skelter

The climb wasn’t hard for its challenge, not really: Up the fire escape, shimmy over the ventilation, then skip the several feet of gutter gap to the other roof. All the type of motion she’d contended with enough that it had turned rote and trivial. _No_ , Skitter mused. What made the climb so arduous was the paper bag — the same she’d just lodged under her armpit, to hoist herself up an edge — having to be nursed like a newborn to prevent spillage. Or extra spillage, as the case was, by the bag’s fat-lettered “Bob’s” already marinating in grease.

A jagged horizon spoke wonders to where she was climbing. Half-decrepit projects in crumbling need of new façade, tittering streetlights and scratched sidewalks. Almost pretty, in an overturned dumpster sort of way. The exact type of urban hell that mom, dad, and pop culture had drilled into her to avoid. It made her giddy.

She knew, canonically, that she should feel bad. Shirking dad's expectations wasn't Taylor, but.. she wasn't Taylor either, at this moment in time, and Skitter would be damned caught feeling as sorry for herself as her lone parental unit did. Or maybe that was a lie, and it just felt good to toss another 'fuck you, society' to the pile. Plus, it was fun.

Her target lay in the gravel at the roof’s far precipice, dangling her legs past the rim. The moon-lit fresnel hit her by the side, tracing the curve of her cape and barest glints of black-clad muscles underneath. She looked so… careless, lounged there in the dark. Or maybe capricious. In light of their last few weeks spent together, it made Skitter’s nape bristle.

She’d always likened Shadow Stalker to a panther on the prowl, and while the comparison was still apt, it didn’t really capture the impression. At times like this, Stalker was a cat, fresh from the feast, lounging in front of the mousehole and awaiting play-time.

She hadn’t even laid a foot on the gravel when Stalker turned to look, head slanted sideways, staring through that eerie mask. It sent a chill up her spine, the sharp eyes and lack of expression both, and she found her back straightening from instinct.

“Not even gonna try and sneak?” came Stalker's voice, casual and acrid at the same time.

“Evidently useless against your superior sense of smell,” Skitter shot back, approaching, and raised the takeout bag. 

It wasn't too clear in the dark, but she definitely caught Shadow Stalker's eyes rolling. Stalker picked a random rock off the floor and chucked it past the roof. “Whatever. Got what I want?”

“Bacon cheeseburger and fries for you, wrap for me.” Skitter planted herself by Stalker’s side and the bag between them; dug herself an imprint of a seat into the gravels. “I’m… mildly disappointed. I’ve told you how long I worked on the costume, right? No one in the shop seemed to care.”

“And? You’re not Glory Girl. Civs don’t give a damn,” Stalker replied off-handedly, reaching into the bag to pull out her bounty. 

“I guess not,” Skitter sighed. She let a little silence stew, just staring outward. “Do _you_?”

“Do I what?”

“Give a damn that they don’t give a damn.”

That seemed to throw her off. She didn’t stammer or recoil, but Skitter saw those eyes drop and heard a huff leave her nose, barely a muffled reverberation under the porcelain mask. A rare sight, and Skitter felt a pinprick of giddy pride at having managed to incite it. Vengeance for that stare from earlier. “Shit. I don’t know. I guess? They care that I look good on camera and posters. Not a fuck given to the actual work I do.”

“And by that, you obviously mean your ‘work’ outside the Wards?”

“What else? Seriously, I don’t remember the last time they had us do anything but… rounds around the Boardwalk, or some other gated community. ‘Patrol’,” she almost sneered. ”Yeah. Right.”

“And here I thought you liked your Wards persona. The broody, prowling anti-hero, ready to dispense the ass-kicking hand of justice— Hey!” A french fry had flown the distance from Shadow Stalker's hand and hit Skitter on the arm. The greasy shell made it stick to the fabric.

“Fuck off,” Stalker said, but it came with a glint of a smile -- only confirmed when she went and detached the lower third of her mask. The smirk underneath had teeth.

Skitter hefted her mask up, too, in reply, just high enough so she could eat, and popped Stalker's fry in her mouth; unwrapped and started at her own meal, having to rein in only a little distaste. She never cared much for Bob’s - it was the type of place you went to at the witching hour while wasted on pot and a shitty lot in life, or at least that was the impression she got from the clientele. The grease stuck to the roof of your mouth for hours, their fries were soggy, and what they called a ‘small’ portion was enough to satisfy her household. 

But Shadow Stalker revelled in it, always ordering the same of a bacon cheeseburger and fries (which she ate three at a time, like right now), and Skitter found bearing through her mushy wrap a small price to pay for the sight.

Mouths full, they settled into easy silence. 

Sure, interruptions came: the scratch of packaging foil, a stray’s bark somewhere below. None detracted from how comfortable Skitter found herself. It... was odd. Not the silence itself, but how casual it felt and how easily it came. This wasn’t a terse, awkward stutter whenever dad tried to speak outside of routine, or that dreadful lull after homeroom. It just was. Two persons, associates, maybe even friends, letting their mutual presence take precedence. An almost foreign concept.

What was it about her mask’s abstraction that let her not be such a fuck-up? Self-pitying as it may be, Taylor _was_ pathetic. Everyone could see that. Everyone _saw_ that. But Skitter..

Skitter was something else. Something vicious. She stood straight, intimidating; she bit back, and bit in advance. It went unsaid, but she knew Shadow Stalker wouldn’t have it any other way. This high standard — and the knowledge she satisfied it — left a pang in her stomach.

 _You can’t catch up, you get left in the dust._ Stalker’s words.

“I get you, though,” she commented, eventually, stealing a glance of her partner. “The Wards.. I’m embarrassed by just the thought they were an option I considered. Suppose I’m lucky I had you to put me straight.”

An amused puff of breath, and Stalker rolled her eyes for real. “Can we like, please not talk about work? I came here to relax.”

“Uh-huh. How about the things you do to relax?”

“Kick nazi ass and take nazi names, duh. What else?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. Kick Merchant ass, maybe?”

“You know me too well,” Shadow Stalker mumbled, midways through her final bite. She crumpled the foil into a ball and tossed it over her shoulder. “Can’t stay long tonight, right?”

“Don’t remind me. School tomorrow.” Skitter poked at what was left of her own meal. A few scraps of bread and corn, barely worth tearing into the packaging for.

“Of course. Don’t—” Shadow Stalker reared her arms up and stretched, popping joints and sighing contently, and Skitter found herself drawn to watch. When she caught sight of Stalker’s eyes sidelining hers, she quickly snapped away. “Don’t want the teachers catching whiff of what their straight-A student gets up to when they’re not looking.”

Skitter puffed through her nose, unsure whether to take that with humour or disquiet. She settled on a vague sense of mischief. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Perks of being a…” Shadow Stalker clacked her tongue, craning back and turning to grace Skitter with a wide grin. “What’s the word? Delinquent? I can go _all night_.”

Skitter met Shadow Stalker’s eyes, dug her hands into the gravel and arched her back, mimicking the other’s half-lying pose. She couldn’t quite manage the grin, or those taut muscles that supported Stalker’s weight. “Isn’t Arcadia High really prickly about missed classes? I’m sure I’ve heard of people being forced to transfer out because of it.”

“Probably? I wouldn’t know, I don’t go there. But Clockblocker moans about it just constantly.”

Skitter’s breath caught for heartbeat. “Wait, you don’t?” she blurted out, her brow crumpling. Not that Stalker could see. 

“No..? It’s not that shocking." 

"…it's news to me. I thought it was required,” she said levelly - or as levelly as she could - and gazed away. Small paranoias bubbled, but she snuffed them as quickly as they came.

"God no. I'm stuck with the Wards way too many hours of the day already. No way am I adding school to the top of that.”

"You mean to tell me the rumors of Shadow Stalker and Gallant's nightly meetings aren't true?"

Shadow Stalker sputtered, chuckling without sound. "Where the hell did you hear that?"

"I looked you up."

Shadow Stalker swiveled in her spot to fully turn to Skitter. Her forearm came up to prop her head. "You looked me up, huh?"

"I meant more like-" 

"Oh, I know what you meant," Stalker cut in, tone tinny and distant, or maybe mocking, but it was hard to place. Skitter hadn't heard it used much and didn't dare speculate, so she took it as a cue to shut up. 

“Whatever,” Stalker said, puffing a breath and shaking her head. Then she stood abruptly, almost hopping to her feet. Two crossbows, industrial and sleek, left their holsters, and she spun them through the air — one went to rest against her shoulder, the other she aimed vaguely at the horizon. Showy. “You up for a long, relaxing stroll around the block?”

Skitter followed suit, picking herself up and flashing Shadow Stalker with an almost-smile, grateful for the awkward moment cut short. A buzz came to straddle the back of her mind; promises of an upcoming hunt. She let it. Her insects chittered in chorus, and that was all the affirmation her partner needed.

Shadow Stalker jumped off the roof, leaving only silence to beckon Skitter. 

She complied, casting silken nets to feather her fall.

============

Six thugs lay beaten and prone in the back-alley, either unconscious or wise enough to pretend to be. The seventh was by the dumpster, moaning at the spider perched on her face, stopping only to periodically thrash against the restraints or cuss the bolt buried in her calf. A modest pile of arms, knives and what probably was drugs lay by the wayside; Shadow Stalker had neatly dismantled each gun.

Skitter stood in the center, watching as Shadow Stalker knelt beside each downed gangster and filed through their pockets. It wasn’t a habit she felt she should endorse, but.. well, they brought this upon themselves. That Stalker would give her half the proceeds was appreciated, too: Lord knew she needed the money, with dad’s measly wage and— but she wouldn’t think of that. Self-pitying was for Taylor, and Taylor wasn’t here.

The buzz of adrenaline, even in its vestiges, was a delight. It was a woozy sort of pleasure, the kind that made her heart beat with restrained giggles. Distractions melted away, and brought everything else into focus, including her partner. _Especially_ her partner. 

She restrained herself, hard as it was fight the urge to... to do _something_. Heat rose up in her cheeks. Wouldn’t do to go all dopey on Shadow Stalker, much as she might have wanted to just.. reach out and grab her hands, pull her into a tight hug, and dance until their legs stopped working. She didn’t even know how to dance.

Skitter hummed instead, just appreciating the sight of Shadow Stalker. Tilted her head, crossed her arms-

-And stifled a wince when her shoulder stung something sharp.

A stray flung bottle had shattered against it, earlier, when they’d first started the fight. Her high must’ve begun wearing off, turning the pins and needles into a sting she couldn’t really ignore. Oh well — she hadn’t dislocated anything, and a broken bone would probably burn a lot more painfully. It’d heal. So long as she could keep it hidden, there wouldn’t be an issue.

She turned from her shoulder in time to see Shadow Stalker staring at her, _through her_ , with that same stare that always made her square her shoulders. _Oh_. “Were you hit?"

“I’m fine,” she bit out, maybe too hard, forcing her arms to hold together through the pain.

Shadow Stalker’s eyes narrowed and she stood, discarding the wallet she'd been rifling through. Skitter scoured for a retort, something to keep her off her case, but Stalker was already blazing a trail toward her and glaring hard. 

“Let me see,” Shadow Stalker snapped, and Skitter almost had to cringe away. 

Her mind whirled back, to one of their first outings. She’d overextended, relied too much on her insects’ senses than concrete agility and suffered a knock on the head for it. Shadow Stalker’s scolding afterward was vicious and not undeserved, but she took it for what it was: an underlying warning to not fuck up again.

The thought made her want to groan. She’d done exactly that, and Shadow Stalker had her dead to rights. Stalker’s hands reached to clasp her by the neck and bicep, and she fumbled, intercepted them with her own — just a push, not a fighting grapple, but still enough movement to elicit a pained murmur. The vigilante huffed with disapproval. 

“I'm telling you, I’m fine,” Skitter lied, but it was blatant.

“Dude, I’m not asking to see you naked,” said Shadow Stalker, leveling her gaze. She dropped her arms, placating, drawing Skitter’s hands down with them, and her voice teetered on husky. “Just… let me check if you’re hurt, all right?”

“I’m-” Skitter tried again, but she found the words hard to fish out _._ _Damn it._ “Fine,” she gave in, swallowing her nerves. Craned her neck to the side, exposed the costume seam that looped it, and used her other hand to gently tug it past the collar, giving Shadow Stalker full view. She braved a glance of her own, too, and immediately regretted it.

The plum splotch colouring her pale skin was a visceral enough contrast; the long gash that cut across it, perpendicular to her collarbone and glossy with blood, made for a whole different tale. _Ouch_. Her spider silk hadn’t split, but it must’ve caught on a fragment of the bottle — gotten dragged with the splintered edge and shredded a line underneath. Seeing the injury in its full made the pain surge, and she bit into her inner cheeks for leverage against it. She couldn’t help the hiss when Shadow Stalker planted a hand on the bruise, either.

“You’re fine, huh?” Stalker mumbled, brushing the rim of the bruise with her thumb. The cool finger helped numb the pain, just a touch, but she couldn’t get herself to untense under it. A tangled ball of anxiety and embarrassment curdled in her stomach, more pressing than the pain itself. Stalker seeing her like this was the last thing she wanted.

“It’s nothing,” she blurted out. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Uh-huh.” Shadow Stalker released her grasp of Skitter and turned to walk, drawing out an exasperated breath. “Wait here. I’ve got a kit in my pack.”

A thought of running away briefly flashed in her mind, to vanish and avoid seeing the disappointment in Shadow Stalker’s eyes again, but Stalker returned in seconds, red case in her hands. She planted herself in front of Skitter and reached out to wordlessly rinse and dress the wound: wiping the bruise, cleaning and binding the cut. Skitter just complied with the motion — Shadow Stalker’s dagger-sharp glare said all that needed to be said. Any words of her own would have just stoked the suspense.

"This is gonna sting," Shadow Stalker warned, then dabbed a wipe of antiseptic across the cut and sealed the bandage. The thanks were hissed through grit teeth.

Stalker must've caught on to something rumbling in Skitter’s head, because she cupped her chin and pulled her head to face her. The amber lenses of Skitter's mask were nigh-transparent this close, meaning she couldn’t do much to avoid Stalker's gaze. It took her a second of steeling herself to meet it.

“Relax, all right?” Shadow Stalker said, a touch annoyed. “It's not that bad. I’ve had worse. _Way_ worse. Bleeding’s mostly stopped, too, so like… it should barely leave a scar. Do you have first aid training?”

“I don’t, no, but-”

“You’ll want to change the dressing, once before bed, then again tomorrow. Should be fine otherwise.”

“I.. yeah. Okay.”

“…what?”

“Nothing. Just my brain being stupid." 

Shadow Stalker, by the continued stare and tilt of her head, was wholly unconvinced.

A strangled yelp from the side came just in time to save her — a couple feet away, the conscious thug had sat herself half-upright against the dumpster and was futilely fumbling for her pockets; her hands were still shackled with silken string. Together with the glare she was giving them, it looked ridiculous.

Skitter seized this, gesturing vaguely to the shaft poking out of the woman's calf. “Shouldn’t you, ah, take that? I doubt Armsmaster would appreciate finding your arrow stuck down someone’s leg.”

“ _Bolt_ , not arrow. Important distinction,” Shadow Stalker said, holding her index finger up and tutting it lamely. Then she sighed, irritated. “And yeah, probably."

Skitter turned to look, together with Shadow Stalker. Just on time, too: almost in slow motion, she watched the thug’s face shift from the venomous grimace and into a look that could only be described as complete and abject horror.

============

By the time Taylor made it to her front porch, the residue thrill had already begun giving way to exhaustion and a dreary nostalgia for her room and bedsheet. A stuttering blue glare played out in the curtains — the TV was playing late-night reruns of some 10-year old sitcom she couldn’t parse and didn’t care to — but a sweep with her bugs had already informed her dad was dead asleep on the couch. Or comatose, more likely, considering the number of bottles and cans littering his side.

She thought she should sigh, but the melancholy of the sight had long since turned stale. If anything, there was only a faint sense of relief. At least she wouldn’t have to climb in through the window again.

Dozens of eyes and feelers still keeping watch, Taylor shimmied the door open and stepped in, careful to keep to the floorboards that didn’t creak and fighting the urge to just run up to her room and collapse that very instant. But, _of course_ , _chores_ needed doing. So she snuck close to dad’s couch and scrounged up the scattered cans and bottles, filling up a bag and planting it in the hall. She’d return it to the store tomorrow, if she remembered. Cents apiece, sure, but it added up.

Her share of Shadow Stalker’s bounty — a whopping thirty-six dollars — she quietly slipped into dad’s wallet, confident he wouldn’t notice. Cover stories and explanations played in her mind, but denial was always a good choice — it worked last time. _Nope, sorry. No idea how it got there._

The idea of brushing her teeth at 3 AM was quickly dismissed; she wrung her teeth through mouthwash and quickly cleaned up. Clothes and costume went off (re-dressing the wound with a kit she stole from downstairs as she went along), pyjamas came on, and she joined the soft folds of her duvet in bed. 

The only thing left was for her exhaustion to translate into sleep, but her brain had other plans. It usually did. She couldn’t escape the sigh this time.

She hated—she _loathed_ feeling like this. The limbo between Skitter and Taylor, when emotions finally started catching up and she had to deliberately dull the background anger at her father, her house, her inevitable tomorrow. It made her turn in bed, fists balled up, finding an old rip in the mattress and scratching at it. Her head dug into the pillow.

The only redeeming thoughts were those of Shadow Stalker. They helped, most nights, stopping the intrusive urge to bang her hands against the bed railing and tiding her over until she was claimed by sleep. Images and fantasies of what they’d get up to the following night, of their next escapade, and the things Shadow Stalker would do and teach her throughout. Of the _badassery_ , as Shadow Stalker always put it, they’d get up to.

Of Shadow Stalker’s wispy form, bounding between rooftop and rooftop. Gliding with that black cloak unfurled and settling down into a three-point landing, all without a hint of sound. Hand on Skitter’s shoulder, laughing about something inane, green eyes glittering in the moonlight. 

A dreamless sleep would spirit her away, eventually, dispersing those fantasies into the ether. But for now, and up until she fell asleep, they were her comfort, softer even than the folds of her bed. False, yes — Shadow Stalker wasn’t one for affection, as she’d made crystal clear from the very start — but the thought that they could be friends, _actual_ friends, at some nebulous point in the future, was definitely… it was nice.

Maybe she was latching on, laying it on too thick, finding insinuations where there weren’t any, but that didn’t matter. Shadow Stalker was the sole good thing left in the tattered play that was her life, and Taylor wouldn’t let go.

When that hellish buzz of her alarm woke her up for school, it felt like she hadn’t slept for more than five minutes.


End file.
